HOLLYWOOD - The MTV Video Music Awards started off with a bang early Sunday, as rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight was shot in the leg at a late-night party hosted by nominee Kanye West. Knight, 40, was hit once in the right leg at the star-studded gala on Miami Beach. The gunman, described only as a black male wearing a pink shirt, remained at large at large Sunday, The Associated Press reports.
Knight was admitted to Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach in good condition. Hospital officials announced that he was set to go into surgery to remove the bullet and repair a broken bone that resulted from the shooting.
"We are interviewing all the witnesses we can to hopefully develop a composite," Miami Beach police spokesman Bobby Hernandez said.
According to several witnesses, Knight was sitting in the VIP Red Room section of swank hotspot the Shore Club when a man walked up and opened fire. No one else was hurt in the incident.
Other A-listers who attended the party included Jessica Alba, Eddie Murphy, Paris Hilton, rapper the Game, and the Black-Eyed Peas. It remained unclear whether they were still around at the time of the shooting.
Knight co-founded seminal rap record label Death Row Records which made a name for itself in the 1990s with West Coast rappers Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur, amongst others.
He is no stranger to controversy: In 1992, he was convicted of assault and weapons violations and placed on probation; in '96, he was imprisoned for five years for violating probation after he and other associates, among them Shakur, were captured on videotape beating a gang rival at a Las Vegas hotel.